Replying To FullOfPorter: "County boards are by no means perfect and plenty of mistakes made, we ended up in big debt a while back as well. But at the end of the day they are volunteers, the organisation remains community based no matter what happens and no US investor is discarding the teams when all goes wrong. I'm not sure if it unique to Ireland but professional rugby in Ireland seems to be controlled by the governing body with only four teams to manage where producing players for the national team is the main objective. Fair play to them but I feel absolutely no affinity with Connacht rugby. Following the GAA is an antidote to aloof nature of professional sport that lacks the community feel which the GAA has. I think going pro will eliminate that."
We're not unique in that in rugby because same system operates in Scotland - SRFU owns the two professional teams there (Edinburgh and Glasgow), pays the players of those teams directly, and calls much of the shots about when they play for those teams or when they're released for national team duty.
England and France, the professional clubs are all independently owned and operated.
Wales is a messy mix of both systems, and it gets even messier every time they try to do something about it.